Russian Commission Begins Proton Investigation

(MCLEAN, Va., March 3, 2006) -- The Russian space agency has announced the formation of a state commission to investigate the anomaly this week that caused a Proton Breeze M vehicle to place the ARABSAT 4A satellite into an incorrect orbit.

The commission stated its intention to complete the investigation by March 30. The commission is led by Victor Remishevsky, deputy director of the space agency, Roscosmos. Deputy chairmen are Yuri Bakhvalov, first deputy general designer from Khrunichev, which built the Proton vehicle and the Breeze M upper stage; and Alexander Chulkov, Roscosmos director of payload deployment systems.

The launch on Wednesday was carried out under the auspices of International Launch Services (ILS), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.

Independently of the Russian commission, ILS is forming a Failure Review Oversight Board, which will be chaired by Eric Laursen, ILS vice president and chief engineer. The oversight board is chartered to independently review the methods, conclusions and corrective action recommendations of the Russian state commission investigation and to report on the findings. All oversight board activities will be subject to relevant U.S. government regulations.